


History of Today

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bittersweet, Established Relationship, F/F, Manipulation, Nightmares, Skrull(s), Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23255425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: Carol wakes from a nightmare she can't remember.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Jessica Drew
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Carol/Jess Mini Exchange 2020





	History of Today

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hopelesse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelesse/gifts).



> Hope, I wanted to write time loop fic for you. In the end this is not quite that but I hope it is close enough that you will enjoy it anyway.

It starts with the glass on her nightstand. Waking from an indistinct nightmare, faded from her memory the second her eyes are open, her hand reaches for Jess, but she’s facing the wrong way. The glass hits the floor with a clunk muffled by the carpet.  
  
Jess stirs next to her and mutters a groggy, “Something wrong, babe?” But she starts gently snoring again before Carol can answer.

Carol rolls out of bed, slides her feet into her slippers and finds them sodden from the spilled water. With a groan, she picks them up and tiptoes across the cold linoleum of the hallway to drop them in the bathtub.

It’s going to be one of those days where she could really use a drink.

She settles on the couch to watch early morning television with overly peppy hosts and the dreary sense that she’s seen it all before. She’s drifted into a hazy non-sleep when Jess joins her some hours later.

Jess puts a hand to her forehead with a frown and Carol snaps back into focus. “Are you sick or something? I’ve been talking to you,” Jess says.

“Uh, I don’t know. Insomnia, I guess.”

Jess smiles sympathetically. “Want to go back to bed? Maybe we need to try harder to tire you out.”

Carol rests her head on Jess' shoulder. She feels removed from herself, despirited in a way she’s not sure sex can help with. It’s almost like she felt when she first quit drinking. 

“Let’s just...sit here for a bit.” 

It’s been a quiet week, at home with Jess and no real work to do, yet she feels spread thin, stretched out like she does in the midst of prolonged disaster.

Her brain is reaching into the buried recesses of her mind trying to dig up the dream from the night before. The oppressive heaviness of it, the feeling of a dark cloud shrouded over her mind. She remembers what it feels like to forget things and the dream haunts her like her lost memories once did.

Jess is silent beside her, but Carol holds her hand is a delicate grip like if she squeezes too hard Jess's hand will wither away. She sees shrivelled Autumn leaves in her mind’s eye and thinks of how people find beauty in them and yet they are lifeless signs of nature removing the dead.

“Carol,” Jess nudges her, “you’re scaring me a little. Will you please come back to bed with me? You need to sleep.”

Words feel like a dead weight and she hasn’t the strength to drag them out of herself, so she nods and they walk hand in hand back to the bedroom. 

They sit on the edge of the bed, still and silent just as they did on the couch. 

“I’m going to get you a drink, babe, I’ll be right back, then we'll rest.”

Without Jess beside her, Carol feels adrift. Drowning. Like her brain is filling up with noise she can’t decipher.

On the night stand, her phone buzzes.

She ignores it, but it buzzes again and with a sigh, she checks it this time. 

The message is simple. A one word reminder. As she reads it, she is met with a vivid flash of memory - palming the phone, typing blind as she kisses Jess, her heart stuttering with the fear of being caught. 

The name is branded in her mind, a scabbed over wound that’s unhealed beneath and all it took was this gentle scrape to start the bleeding again. 

_Veranke_.

“Carol?” 

Jess is back.

It is only her years of being a superhero and a soldier that suppress Carol's urge to flinch.

“Someone call you?”

“It’s nothing,” Carol says, “come back to bed.”

But Jess is frowning. She pries the phone from Carol’s hand before Carol’s sluggish mind can process her movement.

The message is still on the screen.

“Well shit,” Jess says, and her skin is turning a sickly green that matches the feeling in Carol’s stomach. “Guess we’re going to try this one more time.” 

Jess grabs Carol’s forearms and something snaps back in Carol’s brain like an elastic band that’s been released. Her body goes light and suddenly, she’s gone.

\--

The fading sting of a nightmare. She reaches for Jess, for her anchor, her warmth, and swats the glass on her nightstand to the floor instead. Jess stirs, says, “Something wrong, babe?” and falls back to sleep.

Carol has a headache worse than when she’s taken a beating from a supervillain. She’s forgotten the dream already. She lies back, closes her eyes and thinks, maybe that’s for the best.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] History of Today](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884125) by [Cathalinareads (Cathalinaheart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart/pseuds/Cathalinareads)




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